for a local flood that could give rise to stories of the Great Flood. The flooding of the Black Sea. The eruption of Thera. There is even evidence of an asteroid impact crater.

Plenty of devout Christians I have known believe that the Old Testament is a humanly recorded history of a people who had encounters with the Divine. There is no conflict between believing that the history created and maintained by people is fallible, and believing that it documents extraordinary events. And as soon as you open the door for this belief, you open up all sorts of possible reconciliations between science and the Bible. A particularly commonly cited one being that a local flood could give rise to the story of Noah's Ark.

Of course as soon as you think that the record is fallible, there are all sorts of difficult questions about what in particular is likely to be wrong. Fundamentalists generally don't like questions like these. It is far more convenient to just have the Revealed Truth which you can use to club backsliders and atheists with...

Cheers,
Ben